1. Discoverability

Humans are hard-wired to be curious about the world around them and want to understand it.

This is biological as the temporal lobe, associated with learning, memory and emotion, releases dopamine when you feel a sense of accomplishment, growth and empowerment.

When you feel good, you're more likely to act. And you keep going back for more dopamine hits.

That's why a story doesn't start at the beginning. It starts when someone wants to hear YOUR story and actively goes about finding it.

What this means for your KPIs

We've known for ions, selling doesn't sell.

And copywriters have known since the dawn of mass consumerism, show, don't tell.

The map is old but the landscape is new.

The days of telling people about how these brand new vacuum cleaners suck up all the dirt from your carpet are gone. Every type of product exists and if you're not sure, you Google it. You don't wait for a knock at the door or a well-placed billboard.

Simply having a PPC banners follow people around the internet won't work due to the volume of noise on a page. And as it's not the reason they're there, they block it out. Plus, the rise of ad blockers means saying "buy headphones here" won't work anymore.

You need to tell people the story of your brand and your product by giving them something to engage with during their discovery phase with storytelling that offers meaningful:

• Guidance
• Entertainment
• Solutions

But let's face it, they're going to be looking at lots of brands and companies who look just like you, sound just like you and have the same story to tell.

The key is to find a story the other minstrels aren't telling. Or telling it in a way that's so unique, it stops people in their tracks just to read it.

This is a key pillar of Interaction Thinking. If you don't nail this one, you won't crack the rest.

And that's because it all rests on:

• Triggers: the life event that started the discovery process
• Result: what your audience wants to know, feel and do
• Places: where they go to find it
• Search language: it starts with the words people typically use to describe it
• Readability: the language needed for it to resonate emotionally
• Credibility: needs Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust (EEAT)
• Format: the structure and media it's presented in

The discoverability golden egg is looking for those content opportunities that everyone is hungry for and feeding them fantastic content in a way that leaves them wanting more.

Like Line of Duty. Yes, even with that terrible ending.

After that, SEO, GEO (the AI bit in your search engine) and ASO (the app store search engine) are just a technicality with all the bits needed for the spider and speed.

This is the same irrespective of the channel or objective. And due to that, all channels and outputs need to work together towards the same objective in different ways.

People will watch, like and share your social posts if it's something they want to know, told in a way that resonates. And emails will get opened, read and clicked for the same reason.

Only 40% of websites feature on SERPs - the first results page of your search engine. So you need to make sure you're above the competition, especially if your company is an SME.

For those Content Design puritans, this even extends to services pages, for example, buying journeys, updating details, finding contact details, etc.

There may be people who know exactly what they want and where they need to go to get it but that doesn't mean they don't want to feel like they're part of a journey.

Make amplification part of your marketing strategy

Although this sort of content has to dovetail seamlessly into your buying and logged in journeys, so should sit within the digital architecture team to ideate, strategise and create; marketing still plays a vital role in amplifying and distributing this discovery content (some call it content marketing, others editorial/blog/SEO content) in terms of putting media spend behind it and planning when and where to amplify the content.

Fantastic ideas, on-point functionality, incredible writing and unbeatable structure can only work so hard to maximise the content's reach and potential.

The whole point of Interaction Thinking is to create immersive, holistic and innovative strategies that centre conversations with customers and prospects.

Content Experience Architecture is the anchor that keeps Interaction Thinking central and stable so all the component parts work together to fly high so all customers and prospects see, follow and enjoy the Content Kite.